The third instalment of Jimin Oh-Havenith’s Schumann edition features Carnaval, op.9, and Davidsbündlertänze, op.6, two of Schumann’s best-known piano cycles, much loved by performers and audiences alike.

Carnaval is based on the idea of an imaginary masked ball; four autobiographically charged letters are used as a musical cryptogram to create fictitious and real figures, which Schumann translated into a stylistically highly versatile and sophisticated piano piece with an almost orchestral soundscape.

In his set of 18 Davidsbündlertänze, Schumann’s literary alter egos Florestan and Eusebius appear as the main characters in a poetic dialogue, which the composer also intended as a secret message to his fiancée Clara Wieck: “wedding thoughts, composed in the most beautiful excitement I have ever been able to muster”. In their combination of intensity and sensitivity of expression, these pieces represent a pinnacle not only of Schumann’s piano oeuvre, but also of the wider piano repertoire.